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Saturday, September 19, 2009

A beauty contest, or beauty pageant, is a competition based mainly, though not always entirely, on the physical beauty of its contestants, and often incorporates personality, talent demonstration, and question responses as judged criteria. Almost invariably, competitions for men and women are separate events, and those for men are not referred to as beauty contests. Beauty contests for women are more common, and winners are called beauty queens. Beauty contests for men, like Mr. Universe, are more likely to be "body building" contests—quite unlike the traditional "beauty contest" in which women are judged upon many attributes both physical and otherwise. However, in the 1990s, male "beauty contests" began to shift focus. Instead of only considering muscle mass, the competitions began to judge the natural physical attributes of the contestants as well as their physiques. These include Mr. World, Manhunt International and Mister International.Pageants like the Miss Teenage California Scholarship Pageant has not had a swimsuit competition in over 20 years. The program concentrates on Academic Achievement & Activities, Personality, and Poise and Appearance in Formal Attire.The program awards thousands in college scholarships and prizes. There are also beauty contests for children.

Choosing symbolic kings and queens for May Day and other festivities is an ancient custom in Europe in which beautiful young women symbolized their nation's virtues and other abstract ideas. The first modern American pageant was staged by P. T. Barnum in 1854, but his beauty contest was closed down by public protest. He previously held dog, baby, and bird beauty contests. He substituted daguerreotypes for judging, a practice quickly adopted by newspapers. Newspapers held photo beauty contests for many decades: In 1880, the first “Bathing Beauty Pageant" took place as part of a summer festival to promote business in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Contests became a regular part of summer beach life, with the most elaborate contest taking place in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where the “Fall Frolic” attracted women from many cities and towns.

The modern beauty pageant's origin is traceable to the Miss America Pageant, which was first held in Atlantic City in 1921, under the title "Inter-City Beauty Contest." The Miss America Pageant eventually included preliminary eliminations, an evening gown competition, musical variety shows, and judging by panel. Still, the contest was at first shunned by middle-class society. Pageants did not become respectable until World War II, when "beauty queens" were recruited to sell bonds and to entertain troops. Scholarships and talent competitions evoked even closer scrutiny of contestants’ morals and backgrounds. The Miss America Pageant is the largest provider of college scholarships for women in the world.

Other major contests include the yearly Miss World competition (founded by Eric Morley in 1951), Miss Universe (founded in 1952), Miss International (founded in 1960) and Miss Earth (founded in 2001 with environmental awareness as its concern). These are considered the "Grand Slam" or "Big Four" pageants, the four largest and most famous international beauty contests. Minor contests, such as the Miss Bondi contest in Australia, are common throughout the world in the summer months. During the 1950s, pageants thrived to promote county fairs and local products. For example, some of Raquel Welch's titles included "Miss Photogenic" and "Miss Contour." Women from around the world participate each year in local competitions for the chance to represent their country's international title.2002 was a year remarkable for its number of winners from counties with a majority Muslim population. In that year Miss Lebanon, Christina Sawaya won the Miss International pageant, Miss Turkey, Azra Akin won Miss World, and the original winner of Miss Earth for that year was Džejla Glavović from Bosnia and Herzegovina (before being replaced by Winfred Omwakwe of Kenya). In 2006, the Muslim nation of Pakistan crowned its first Miss Bikini Universe, Mariyah Moten, which later became a controversy worldwide.Websites are the newest incarnation of the beauty pageant format. Websites like The Ultimate Beauty Queen and others bill themselves as leveling the playing field by allowing more contestants and giving internet users the power to judge them.